Ameenah Ayub Allen, producer of Rocks and co-producer of Ali & Ava, and Bring Them Down producer Jacob Swan Hyam are among the recipients of the latest round of awards from the BFI Doc Society’s Research and Development (RAD) fund.
Twelve non-fiction feature projects in early development have been supported over the last year through the RAD fund, with awards totalling £61,000.
Screen Star of Tomorrow 2018 Allen is the producer of Flesh And Flamingos, an experimental documentary exploring queer photography in the north of England, and focusing on the story of Stuart Linden Rhodes – a West Yorkshire teacher by day, and photographer of the 1990s LGBTQ+ scene by night. Dominic Leclerc – whose credits include episodes of Sex Education – directs, with Sarah Mavity co-producing.
Jacob Swan Hyam’s project Electric Waves explores the ocean as a site of mass communication, memory and time. The hybrid documentary fuses filmed observational scenes, archival footage and fiction. Natalie Cubides-Brady directs.
The RAD fund was launched in December 2023 to recognise the creative risk and financial challenge early development presents to filmmakers without commercial investment or personal resources to advance their creative non-fiction films. All projects listed were awarded between £3,800 and £6,500. Applications for the RAD fund are open on a rolling basis.
The RAD fund is in addition to the BFI Doc Society features fund, which has invested £85,000 in development funding and £632,000 production finance across the past year. The BFI Doc Society Made of Truth fund, a shorts fund in partnership with the BFI Network, awarded £373,000 across 2024 to 16 projects, with each project receiving between £20,000 and £25,000. Pinny Grylls and Sam Crane’s SXSW, CPH: DOX and BFI London Film Festival premiere Grand Theft Hamlet was developed out of Made of Truth fund short, Undiscovered Country.
BFI Doc Society RAD Fund supported films
Rotimi, Becoming dir. Joseph a. Adesunloye
A View From The Edge dir. Jodie Taylor, prod. Chloe White
Trouble In Paradise dir. Cassie Quarless
Monument To The Vanquished Peasant: A People’s History Of Enclosure dir. Leah Gordon
Labour & Love dir. Lotje Sodderland, prod. Helen Spooner
Freedom Dreaming dir. Rhea Storr
Cripping Up dir. Amy Crighton, prod. Meg Fozzard
Electric Waves dir. Natalie Cubides-Brady, prod. Jacob Swan Hyam
Fallout dir. Isaac Knights-Washbourn, prod. Nadja Lapcevic
Time Pieces dir. Carol Salter
A Radical Duet dir. Onyeka Igwe, prod. Fawzia Mahmood
Flesh And Flamingos dir. Dominic Leclerc, prod. Ameenah Ayub Allen, co-prod. Sarah Mavity
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